Food, Cleaning, Drawing

I haven't been doing great at sit down meals, so when I do do it, I often record it, that I might give my children the impression that it happened a lot. Maybe it does. Maybe I could do better. I delivered tonight though, so yay for me. Breakfast for dinner - eggs, hashbrowns, grilled peppers and onions, grapefruit, and dried figs. Peter's ready to dig in...

He decided he didn't care about waiting for Corey to get home from work. That's rude Peter! 

I also made a nice Brazilian tomato and onion "molho a campanha". A lovely neighbor gave us a bunch of her garden vegetables - squash, beets, and roma tomatoes, so I had to put the tomatoes to work! I've also been on a real beet kick lately, I'm not sure why. I hated them as a kid, and then I think it was sometime in the past year or two, Corey mentioned that he loves beets, so then I started to try them, and now I think that they are fine! Plus it's kinda fun to eat cause they are so colorful. On our date night Friday we went to a little street cafe in Sugarhouse and we had pickled eggs, cauliflower, cucumebers, and carrots, and they were all purple cause they had been pickled with some beet juice. I also cracked open an "Oh She Glows" that I bought per my SIL's recommendation (SIL Steph, she's vegan like me, thanks to reading a Word of Wisdom book I gifted them when they moved to Texas in 2017, I was very happy to have a fellow family member get on board with me with Veganism, and they put our family to shame now). I bought the Oh She Glows cookbook a year ago on Sep 7, 2019 (The historian in me likes that Amazon keeps track of stats like that and points it out to me when I look at items I've ordered before, nice) They have a beet and balsamic vinegar salad that I've made with arugula - simple, tasty, and pretty. I threw some beets my easy potato curry leftovers from dinner last night, good stuff. 

I had that nice healthy lunch today as I took a break from cleaning. I cleaned a TON today as I listened to General Conference. I talked to Nicole on Monday and she said that she's reviewing all the April 2020 talks this week to prep for General Conference on Saturday, so I thought that was a good idea and that I should do it too. I got a little behind, so today I just listened and cleaned all day, and I got through Saturday morning and afternoon, and I plan to finish the Saturday evening session on a morning walk tomorrow. My hands are chapped now from all the washing I did, but it's good, the house is very clean and I rearranged the side room, thinking that I'd let Peter drive the wiggle car around the house. Cause he's not that good yet and it would be cute to see him practice and give him a track for when it's too cold outside. But then Daniel was driving it around, and that was when I remembered the wiggle cars are very noisy. So then I put the car outside and am reconsidering Peter having a track on the main floor. I guess I'll need to clean the basement, which is a disaster area again. It's fun to have the side room rearranged though, it's fun to rearrange every now and then. Maybe I'll switch the side room couch every General Conference week or seasonal equinox.

Daniel was really cute drawing today. He was "coloring" with a gray pencil in his Cars coloring book. He was so intent and careful with his work, it was really sweet to watch. 

He drew as we read scriptures and continued as kids brushed teeth. 

Such a good drawing, Daniel

He is a sweet little boy.

Loving Time Together

Today was violin. I picked up Sophi and Natalie from school. Daniel came with me to pick them up. Owen also came with us from school, cause I don't like him walking home from the bus stop alone. Cute kids. Owen kept saying "Daniel! You need a mask!" He is a very "Follow the rules" kinda kid, he likes to know the rules and follow them, and make his siblings follow them.

We are trying to do better at following school rules and procedures. The elementary girls are doing pretty good at doing homework and reading. I recently learned that Sophi has been doing lousy on her spelling tests, so we're going to study this week! Great idea. I've also encouraged Sophi and Natalie, when we are at lessons and the other is taking their turn with Miss Amy, to spend their time reading while they wait. That will get their homework of reading taken care of for the day! They are supposed to read for 20 minutes a day, and lessons are 30 minutes, easy and convenient time to do it, right? Yes. It was cute to see Sophi reading today. I'm not sure how she was able to pull Daniel and Owen away from the train table to read, but it was cute. 

Poor Owen couldn't hold on. Daniel in a more comfortable position now as he listens to Sophi read him a story. 

Owen more comfortable now too - zzz...

A few random photos from today and this weekend... A pretty rose on the walk to the bus with Owen this afternoon. 

Lily eating my soup last Saturday night, Lily still eats my soup! 

Peter was very carefully trying to stack Legos Saturday night. Soooo cute, I love him.

Wesley reaching in to help him. 

This is a good visual representation of what I think of when I read "the hand of the Lord" in the scriptures. Peter fell asleep on Wesley tonight during scriptures, so cute.... 

My heart is turning more each day to my children as I do family history. This time with them is so fleeting. I want to soak it up and treasure it. 

So I'll close with a few thoughts about life and genealogy. So I've been on a family history kick for a few weeks. As I got started going a little more on it, a week ago I was trying to do research on my maiden name. I messaged people on facebook and did googling and by some miracle last week I found the phone number for a Geologist named Dennis M. Hibbert (I had learned via an obituary for a Jessie Horrocks Hibbert (one of my dad's unknown aunts) that a "Dennis M" was one of her children...) I called it and it sounded disconnected. Then I found another number, and I tried that one, and was able to leave a message with someone, maybe it was an office, I didn't know but thought hey, "we'll see where that leads" . Well 20 minutes later I got a call back, and he asked who I was and what I needed, I explained myself, and he was kinda floored, but it he is the Dennis Hibbert who's dad is my grandpa's little brother Mark! Mark and Jessie had 3 children, so wow, and yay! I found a long lost cousin! Very cool! So that's who Dennis is. I knew via my research that today was his birthday so I surprised him and called him to wish him a happy day and we talked for over an hour. I also talked to him that first time for over an hour. And he told his sister about me and emailed me her number after asking her if she was ok with me contacting her, so I talked to her and she had a photo of their other sister Marilyn, who died in 1964. 

I didn't have a photo of her so I was glad to get this from Judy. Marilyn left 5 young children, it was very sad, and those are more people that I want to find now too. Here is Dennis and his dad Mark as a little boy.

Such a sweet little boy. Dennis had a pretty hard life. He's been writing out his personal history and sending it to me. Mark was an alcoholic and it was hard on their family. They lived in over 30 places. - Dennis didn't say that they "moved" to a "new" home/place the way we move today, cause they weren't always homes that they lived in. Once it was in an old boxcar. His mom and dad eventually separated. Dennis and Judy both divorced, and Marilyn had three marriages. Mark died alone in a hospital after his apartment landlord hadn't seen him in a while and found him drunk and almost dead in his apartment. As I've been doing family history and have learned about other peoples lives, I've had lots of thoughts about mercy, justice, of the different circumstances we all are given... death, divorce, choices, influence, forgiveness and repentance. Today I also found out that my older sister has asked for a divorce from her husband, which I think is really sad. It's not really my position to say anything about it, but I am praying that maybe they will have a desire to work it out and to maybe try to fight for their family and stay together and keep their temple covenants. I firmly believe that life and death don't happen lightly, that there is a hand guiding it all, that there is more after this mortal experience is over, that we will continue to learn and grow. What will we think of our parents, siblings, and life when it's over and we look back? Will we have passed the test? Did we endure it well? Did we trust and press forward? I do believe that God will totally understand where we were coming from and why we made the choices we did, he will sympathize with our heart ache and our concerns. I love how Nicodemus is portrayed in The Chosen. The Lord totally understand Nicodemus and the hard thing he was asking him to do. He knows how much Nicodemus wanted to go. He gets it, he loves us. He's reaching out to us now and he will still be reaching out to us when we die. There is always hope. We can't go back and change the past, but until we go to the judgement bar, I believe we can still choose to change now. I believe there is missionary work going on in the afterlife, "on the other side of the veil" as we say in the Church of Jesus Christ. I don't know if I'll ever know here on this earth who I have been able to help, but I trust that my meager efforts are appreciated and will bring forth good fruit, even if it is mostly just in the turning of my own heart to my own children and my fathers. It is important, and I'm grateful to try and move my family's work a little more forward as we press on toward the Second Coming of Christ. Sealing families together in the temple - that is what the work and this world is all about. Eternal families. I will continue to try and gather my family. 

Silver Lake

Corey got a little more work done on his car this morning - he got a hitch put on. Corey's got big plans and he's putting them in motion. Last night we started watching Walter Mitty after date night. We turned it off before it finished, and so Corey put it on again this morning hoping it would inspire the kids to be up and doing. He has booked for us to go to Lake Tahoe next summer right after July 4th, cause we have another high school senior and another "last" summer to make memories with our kids. So those things are in the works. Corey wants to go biking, hiking, and skiing! We might go out to the Redwood Forest first for a few days, and see whatever, and then it will be 3 or 4 days in Tahoe and then home. So that's the plan for next summer. Should be fun. Today it was work work work. Homework, practicing music, unfortunately not that much cleaning. Corey got his car hitched up and then was home at 12 for lunch. At 1:30 Corey took Wes with him and they went into the salt mine to get stuff done. Wes... that kid has a bunch of lousy grades again, we don't know what to do to help him. They don't even have to go to school on Fridays right now, so it's not like he doesn't have time... I don't know why he still has a ton of missing assignments. We probably need to take his phone? Or keep kids away from him, he gets distracted super easy. After Corey and Wes got back from the Salt Mine, we had a quick dinner of soup for those who were hungry (soup is not Corey's favorite) and then we went on a hike up to Silver Lake. Wesley stayed home to rest, his stomach was hurting.

The sun had just set and it was getting dark quickly, but we had time to make it around the lake. It was colder than I thought, I should have told the kids to bring jackets. The older kids did and they were nice enough to share with their younger siblings. Owen wearing Abi's jacket, Daniel in Lily's. I didn't have a jacket so I just hugged Peter tight to keep him warm. We saw three moose! (Meese? Moosen? lol)

Watching a duck swim across the water - 

Hyrum giving Daniel a ride as we walked through the dark tree forest.

Kid group shot

It was really dark when we got back to the car. Dark and cold. Corey said "Let's go home and make scones!" So we did. After we got home, while they were cooking, around 8:50, Mel left a message with me and asked if I could come pick her up from Layton - she had gotten together with the missionaries in her district at one of their houses. It is an hour drive, so I was glad that I saw the note, I had to leave right away. I did, I enjoyed quite time in the car, I listened to Come Follow Me on youtbue. I got there in time, and once I arrived at the address, as I was about to text her that I was "here" she sent me a text saying "Actually come to this address" in Kaysville, so I had to back track 20 minutes which was annoying. I was a little irritated that she didn't think to tell me the different address at the moment that she was leaving and knew she was going to be somewhere else. NOT a big deal, but the murmur-er in me sure thought it was. "...disrespectful!.... Inconsiderate!..." I totally would have gotten lost without google maps. How did we even drive anywhere before google maps? I had to stop and get gas and got myself two ice cream popsicles to pretend that that would help me feel better. Now it's late, we're home, it's all good. It was nice family day. Lots to go, but I'm grateful for a "day of rest" tomorrow.

Flu Shots & Fainting

Two weeks ago, I scheduled for all of us to get flu shots today. I didn't know, when I made this appointment, that the older kids would all be home for online learning today, so that made it a lot easier since I didn't have to check them all our of school. That was a nice and unexpected blessing that I'm grateful for. Usually their online learning day is Friday, but they have Friday off this week cause it's Parent Teacher Conferences today, so that meant that the usual Friday online learning was moved to today so there were only optional zoom calls for classes. We only had to go check out Sophi and Natalie, so that was easy. We loaded everyone into the car to go get flu shots at our 10:20 appointment. The usual drive up covid tents are flu shot tents on Thursdays, so it was a nice drive through clinic experience. I was glad I had a previous experience at the drive up tents with Wes when he got tested for Covid, cause I knew the procedure. Daniel was the last one to wake up and he was a little sad to have to get a shot when we told him where we were going, but once we were in the hospital parking stall and all the nurses were there, he put on a brave face and came and sat on my lap and he didn't cry all at, he was very tough and did great! Good job buddy! There were no tears from anyone except Peter did give a little wimper when he got his shot. We gave him his sucker first, then shot, wimper, then back into his carseat where he enjoyed his flu shot prize. 

I snuck a photo of Sophi getting her shot.

Kids waiting in line for their turn, after LSN and Corey (so he could take them back to class) then it was Wes, Hyrum, and I was last. 

I forgot that we scheduled for Mel to come, and she was at home MTC at her grandparents, so I called to see if she could come with Abi. Abi had to go in for a well visit, because she had to get current on her immunizations, and they wouldn't so that without a check up cause it had been a while since she had her last well visit. I got an email on Monday from the jr. high letting me know that Abi was not current on her shots and would not be able to come to school past the 28th if she did not either get a waiver or get current. So I left to pick up Mel at 1:15, then back home for Abi, then to the doctor for Abi's 2:00 appointment. Mel just came along to get a flu shot, but also to get a current print out of her immunizations so she knows what other ones she needs before she leaves for Indiana. There was some paperwork for Abi to fill out, one of which was the questionairre for mental health. I was reminded of Ethan when he filled his out - and his traumatic experience watching his friend bowl a 60, then he himself bowling a 58. Funny kid. Abi didn't put anything for her traumatic experience, but she could have written of the trauma she feels when she has to get shots... Poor girl fainted on us again. This photo was before the faint when she had gotten 2 of her 4 shots and she was panicking as she felt it coming for a few minutes. She layed down, drank some apple juice, said she felt like she was going to throw up, she was still coherent but not talkative. I think most of it is in her head.

So she passed out as she was laying there. Her eye rolled back, she croaked like a frog, she twitched like she was having a seizure, as usual when she faints at blood it was kinda scary, but she came back to us and started crying at the thought of doing 2 more shots. We tried to encourage her for about 10 minutes. I tried playing some Killers to get her pumped like "I can do this!" but she just sat there wimpering with tears coming down her chees. "I can't do it again" "If you don't, you can't go to school. You can do this! 30 seconds and it will be done! You just need to think of something else!" Nothing gave her strength, but then I said I'd just hug her and she nodded so I hugged her and she buried her face into my left shoulder (so that she wouldn't have her face towards the shots on her left shoulder) and she heaved and cried and then it was done! Yay! I think the full heart ache crying was good for her, it seemed to keep her worked up and kept the blood flowing. She was glad when that was over. I thought that would be it for her shots until she was an adult, but I guess she has to come back in 6 months for the 2nd HPV shot. Other times she's fainted - the first time was when she was 2 and was getting her 2 year immunizations and it was super scary, I was glad some professionals were there who rushed over and said she was ok, she just fainted, cause it seemed like a full on seizure or cardiac arrest to me or something. She fainted once when she was 5 and was sick and had blood drawn. She fainted once when her friend stepped on some glass in our yard and had to get stitches. She also fainted after her surgery last year when her dermoid cyst was removed. I wasn't there but Corey said she fainted and it was scary and they kept her there post op for a four hours to monitor her. She gets queasy, she said today she is a little scared to be a mother cause she doesn't want to get the epidural shot or IVs in at the hospital. I told her "Easy! Just do it natural at home!" Haha. So there's a small history of Abi fainting

Another funny thing today was P had a super stinky and poopy diaper. He came to find me to change him, and as he slid down the stairs frontward, he wiped each step with a streak of poop from his diaper... it was pretty funny.

I'm glad I don't totally freak out much at those messes anymore, cause I know I can clean it up. So I started to clean it up. Peter came to watch.

HE IS THE CUTESTS! Look at that cute cute little smile, oh I love him, poop and all.

Then tonight from 5-6:30, I was doing online parent teacher conferences for the elementary kids, I did a little bit of family history as I waited between calls. Today before I went to go pick up Mel, a lady named Judy called me, she is my dad's cousin so I reached out to her brother first, I was able to find his number somehow, and he called Judy to give her my number and she called and we talked for like 45 minutes! It was great, another lead! It's really fun doing family history to find long lost relatives that are still alive! I'm going to mail her a copy of the family group sheet I have, and I'll call her again after I organize the information I have so far a little bit. But my grandpa Julian, his little brother is Mark, and Judy and Dennis are Mark's kids, it's really great.

Ready for Ski Season

This winter, Corey has major plans to ski, and he's setting himself up for success! He's finally got the 4-wheel drive vehicle he wanted. After his black car died a year ago (end of this post) he had an eye on getting a Honda Pilot. Then when it started getting cold on his bike ride to work, he felt it was time. After spending a few days looking, he bought the car on September 3rd from PMR Auto in American Fork, where we bought my van. Melodie drove him down, he looked at it, and bought it. From his text to me that day "I feel urgency to provide for my kids, feed them, clothe them, and take them places... so had to jump on what I thought was a great deal." This car has been in an accident, but passed Honda certification, and it has "only 17000 miles, which is basically new." Today he had an appointment a rack put on his car. He came home with his car looking good and with a Thule cargo box on top. Corey had the kids help him bring in all the skis and boots from the garage so they could practice fitting it all in. 10 skis, 10 pairs of boots, 7 poles, and 11 helmets! They all fit inside, wow!

Another text from him today: "Must... feed.... entertain....teach... in bulk" He does a pretty amazing job. I'm grateful I could help give him this challenging opportunity and joyful burden of providing for such a large family. It is soul stretching work for both of us, and we are learning to lose ourselves in it. Good job sweetie. One month ago today, he bought some Mountain Collective ski passes for everyone, so we're set to go skiing at the resorts here and to take a few skiing trip weekends for date night! Corey bought me a ticket too, and I said I'll go if he'll take me. I haven't ever gone skiing with a baby, so we'll see how this works with Peter, but it was fun skiing with Owen and Daniel last winter. This will be fun. Corey also got some extra consulting work hours to pay for these toys and activities. I know I am very lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful husband. 

Life Hack - Permanent Marker Remover!

In a nutshell: To get permanent marker off of a wall

1 - Get a tissue or sponge

2 - Dab tissue with a little bit of hand sanitizer

3 - Wipe the permanent marker area and it will easily wipe off! 

4 - Repeat as needed over the drawn on area. 

I used Equate brand but know that 3M also works, those are the only two I've tried. 

Lily just got home from school, and I thanked her for sharing this life hack with me. She discovered it after she decorated her water bottle with permanent marker but then accidentally spilled hand sanitizer on it, and it wiped it right off. 

This is my little mess maker.  

Along with Owen, Peter has recently discovered the joy of writing utensils. Here he was dutifully working at Owen's desk yesterday, (so cute).

My experience today: So I've been catching up on the blog today, I finally finished August, yay. I spent a lot of time catching up on the blog yesterday too, and I hope to be current before October. I don't like getting behind, but it seems like I always am. Anyway, I knew I was pushing my luck cause I was also decluttering and organizing upstairs. And I left Daniel and Peter up there alone. And, I don't know where it was in my bins and piles of junk, but Peter is a gifted child and somewhere he found the dark brown permanent marker. And proceeded to draw on the wall, and the floor, and our dresser. Those were the only ones I was bummed about. Luckily the dresser was brown so I had hope I could blend that in somehow. And I've gotten it out of carpet before, plus it was just three lines. but I was sad that, gauging by my last permanent marker experience, it was going to take me a week to get all that off of the wall... Sigh. It's my own fault.

Things that I don't care that he drew on are: a box of wipes, a bin, the garbage can, and this toy book.

So I was looking for a magic eraser, and finally found one. I went back up, scrubbed the carpet for a bit, and then I remembered Lily saying that hand sanitizer gets off permanent marker. Hmm. I had some right next to me. I put a little on a tissue, and it freaking wiped off soo easily from the dresser! It didn't even appear to ruin the stain on the wood, but I guess time will tell. It came off so easily, yay! Over to the wall I went - lets see if this works... and it did! And it took me like 3 minutes to get it all off the wall! Amazing!

The wall kinda has a reddish tint to it now, this was my first time trying this and I rubbed it all around as I wiped it off with a sponge. I think a better approach would have been little by little with tissue. I still mostly used the US Advantage on the carpet. I tried a little sanitizer on it, but I think it will probably just need a little more scrubbing. But hooray, Lily saved me like 2 hours of my life with this trick. Thank you Lily! I will still strive to keep permanent markers locked up and out of reach, but I'm thankful to be able to add this to my list of home cleaning hacks.

9pm - so later tonight, in my room, I discovered more of Peter's permanent marker damage, most of which I was easily able to clean. Thankfully he didn't do more on the carpet, cause that is the hardest to get off. But I found that he drew on almost every page of that toy book, not just the cover, he drew on another bin under the bed where we kept toys, he drew on a toy piano, top and bottom, he drew on Corey's nightstand, the bed frame, our bed quilt/comforter (luckily it was on a pink flower part so I mostly got that off with a combination of US advantage and the hand sanitizer and what didn't come completely out isn't going to be noticable) he drew on the the window blinds, the balcony door, and yeah, he did a really thorough job! Stinker Pete. 

More Cake and The Chosen

Yesterday was Daniel's birthday. My mom brought over an ice cream, cake, but we didn't eat it yesterday because I knew Corey wanted to take the kids out to Leatherby's. ...and we shouldn't have two huge servings of ice cream in one day. We did have the ice cream cake today - time for Daniel's birthday cake photo - 

I usually have the "Happy Birthday" on the cake facing me, or in this case, the "Daniel" facing me, but Daniel turned it around the right way, cause this is HIS cake! Ok, now take the picture!

Happy birthday yesterday! You are 4! A few more photos of this weekend - I pushed Daniel and Peter on our sun worn swing and playset yesterday. It was fun, they are cute. 

These kids are the simple and important things in my life. 

Today having breakfast - Three little boys, Peter is ready to say a prayer to thank Jesus for his breakfast.

We went to church today and it was a fast and testimony meeting which was wonderful. Corey shared his testimony with the congregation. After church, I don't know what they were talking about, but Corey and a sister named Debbie were talking and she mentioned the tv series "The Chosen" and how they are using the church's Bible Videos set out in Goshen. It piqued Corey's interest and so today we gave the show another try. My little bro Grant and sister Patrice have been telling us for months that it is soooo good, and we tried episode 1, and none of us really got it and the kids weren't willing to watch another one, so I didn't push it, but I did know that Grant and Trice loved it. At church, Debbie mentioned it is good, but you have to get past episode 2 or 3 before you're hooked. So we gave it a go today, made it past episode 1 and I kinda got who was who from the first time I watched it months ago, and then episode 2 we were like "ok, I get it..." and after 3, we just loved it, so we binge watched the rest of the season tonight - cause after each one, the kids were like "more!" and they loved it so much. Mel had to leave right before the last episode ended (it was 10:15 pm and we were already making our missionary late to bed) so we're going to have to watch that one again next week so Mel can finish it, it was so good! I'm really glad that the Church is working with them now and that they are able to use the set in Goshen! Very cool - Christians coming together and working together! yay!!! They did an excellent job with the Chosen, I love the actor for Jesus, he did such a good job portraying him - like I loved how he just gave a little wink like "it's ok, I get the joke!" when a friend says "Wow, I guess something good can come out of Nazareth!" I think the actor for Peter is very good - I loved the historical fiction of the backstory imagining why a net full of fish would have been an important miracle and an answer to prayer for Peter. Just really cool things that are fun to explore, like also to see some possible reasons why their rule under Rome would have been hard. We love Matthew, and we love Nicodemus. We felt so sorry that Nicodemus didn't choose to go with Jesus, but Jesus loved him and knew it was a hard thing he was asking. It would have been worth it had Nicodemus chosen to follow him, but Jesus gets it. He gets all of us!

I'm grateful for his faith in Jesus Christ and the restored gospel. I love how the Chosen gave us an idea of what a more human Jesus might be like. The kids loved seeing him with his back pack. And I think my favorite scene from the show was when Jesus and the apostles are setting off through a field, on their way to Samaria. Not really knowing where they’re going or why, the apostles — most of whom aren’t yet sure why they’re following this unassuming but inspiring carpenter — become alarmed when they learn they’re headed into foreign territory. As they start to nervously question Jesus’ leadership, he turns around, and says half-smiling, “Listen, if we’re going to have a question-and-answer session every time we do something you’re not used to, it’s going to be a very annoying time together for all of us.” As this article says, I love how all the apostles and Christ are shown as "real" people. "We’re so familiar with the traditional Gospel stories that we tend to forget that simple fact. Jesus had plenty of 'human' moments — moments that didn’t make the history books. He got annoyed. He was frustrated from time to time. He joked around and played games, laughed and cried." I love the new perspective that the Chosen has given me and my family about Christ's character. I love the restored gospel of Jesus Christ so much. He is real, he is resurrected, he was a man, he has a Father! They are separate beings! We can know them! We can become like them! The Bible and the Book of Mormon testify of them! The Book of Mormon, by the way, is the best friend the Bible ever had. It testifies that it is true. It gives us a second witness for Christ and his gospel. It is a marvelous work and we are thankful to be take part in it and enjoy the fruits of it's teachings. We often tell the kids "You'll have to decide for yourself when you are an adult, whether you will believe in Jesus Christ and his prophets or not. But just remember, that without Christ and his chosen latter day prophets, you wouldn't be alive. So if you do decide to leave, atleast remember to show some gratitude for it, cause you owe your life to it." We can honestly say that, because we seriously would not have twelve children if Corey and I had not gone to BYU, where we took a class called "Teachings of the Living Prophets" by Dale LeBaron, and the week after we were married, we had to turn in a research paper on "The Position of the Church on Birth Control". I now see that as divine providence guiding our marriage from the first week into our marriage, what timing! "Live together normally, and let the children come." - President Kimball. God has been so abundantly kind to us - here we are 12 healthy beautiful children later, I'm grateful and confused as to why this is my mission, but I accept it and glory in it. 

So there is my spiritual rant, it's late, I gotta go to bed. A few more pics though - while we were watching the chosen, the kids (Owen and Daniel) escaped to the neighbor's house and were gone for over an hour without us knowing, embarrassing, which is why we usually don't/can't binge watch stuff. Later, Peter was at the table eating yummy peaches. I bought a few flats of peaches, they were a good batch, so juicy, soft, and sweet. Mmm! 

 

And I got a kick out of Peter's attire. He's ready for a quarantine zoom call or office meeting - dressed on top... freestyle on the bottom

(aka just in his diaper). I took off his shoes after church, then his pants were too long and he tripped over them so Wes rescued Peter and took them off. He's such a cute kid. We saw a funny video on facebook recently of a little boy called Cade, of him making cookies with his grandma, it made me cry from laughter, so cute and funny! And I think Cade looks a lot like an older Peter. Cute kid, really funny video, they have more in Instagram and on youtube too, they are fun to watch. I love my kids, I love my family, I love my God and that he has provided a way for us to be together forever! Amen

Daniel is 4!

Happy Birthday Daniel! 

Look at me, I put up decorations, yay. Just the birthday banner. Now that this big table is in the way, I've been struggling to get the window birthday announcement letters up. Maybe it's time to move on from that. But Natalie helped me put up the banner. And I got his presents out (Captain American and Lego Dinosaur) and Daniel is easy to please, for which I'm grateful.

His older sisters were way too eager to help him open his legos, and I had to mediate in a few fights between them and Owen. Ok, Owen gets to do the dragon, Natalie you do the house.

As they built the legos, Wesley turned on a few happy birthday songs, and when they said "Happy Birthday Daniel" Natalie stopped and looked up in amazement!

Wesley told Natalie "Yeah, I have friends in a few bands, and I asked them if they could sing happy birthday to my little brother, just cause I'm that great of a brother..." Then he confessed to me that it was just a spotify search of "Happy Birthday Daniel" and tada, we had personalized birthday music for an hour. Corey's parents came by first, I didn't make it outside cause I was preparing lunch, We had burgers for lunch. So, I was in the kitchen making food as Corey walked outside to see his parents when they came over. This was the table of food I was preparing... Burgers, Salad, chips, and peaches....

But as Corey walked by, his sight flew over all the food and mess on the table and he saw the three black bean burgers. 

He asked "Do you have more to eat than just that?" as he nodded toward the bean patties by the stove. I was holding some Beyond Burgers in my hand that I was about to grill and I think I stared at him without answering his question, and I think I gave him a "Are you blind??" look, and I apologized afterwards. But I was amazed at his selective eyesight. He really zeroed in on those black bean burgers. It was like when we are preparing dinner and there's food all over the kitchen and the kids ask if we are going to eat anything. Funny, and again, sorry for the death glare sweetie. I usually don't cook up black bean burgers, but I do have them. Usually I prefer the veggie burgers, but I did the black bean ones tonight cause last night for date night, we went to Stratford Proper Cafe & Bistro, where I enjoyed a black bean burger that had kimchi and an egg on it and it was so tasty! So I was in the mood to do a repeat of that and had to drive to Walmart after there was no kimchi at Smiths. I didn't get around to making me one because I ate the kids leftover burgers instead (after I added a bit of kimchi!) I finished making lunch and the kids came in to finish unboxing Daniel's presents.

Then my mom came by with gifts for Daniel.

He was very sweet and very appreciative. 

Time for lunch. I took a picture of Peter during the prayer. Not very reverent of me, I know, but it's just so cute, we gotta get his little folded arms and bowed head on camera. 

Peter loves peaches! Sometimes he'll spit out the skin though. 

He's so cute. Corey took all the kids out to Leatherby's in Draper for ice cream to celebrate the September birthdays. 

Lily, Sophi, and Natalie trying to get cars to honk.

Daniel in his new Spiderman pjs. 

Cute kids.